SF supervisors elect Malia Cohen their president as Breed...

1of5Malia Cohen, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors representing District 10, during a board meeting at City Hall on Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2017, in San Francisco, Calif.Photo: Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle

2of5Malia Cohen is the new president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.Photo: Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle

3of5Supervisor Malia Cohen listens to fellow Supervisors as they discuss the Transbay Transit District special tax assessment, during the Board of Supervisors their Tuesday Sept. 23, 2014 meeting at City Hall in San Francisco, Calif.Photo: Michael Macor / The Chronicle

4of5Malia Cohen, candidate for Board of Equalization, District 2, on Tuesday March 20, 2018, in San Francisco, Calif.Photo: Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle

5of5Supevisor Malia Cohen (second from left) and Acting Mayor London Breed (right) mourn with others attending a press conference outside the Mayor's Office at City Hall on Tuesday, December 12, 2017 in San Francisco, Calif. In a statement this morning, officials from the mayor's office said that Lee passed away at 1:11 a.m. at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. Lee was 65 years old.Photo: Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle

Supervisor Malia Cohen was unanimously elected president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Tuesday, taking the helm of the city’s legislative branch at a particularly divisive time in city politics.

Cohen was nominated by Supervisor Jane Kim, who praised Cohen for her staunch advocacy for police reform, which Kim called “one of the most difficult issues in the country today.”

Much of the board took turns sharing warm personal and professional remembrances of Cohen, praising her willingness to take on the tobacco and sugary-beverage industries, her efforts to create an equity program for the city’s blossoming legal cannabis industry, and her work over the past two years as chair of the budget committee. No other nominations were submitted.

After a fractious six months in City Hall, Cohen said she was gratified by the board’s unanimous vote in her favor.

“For people to come together from both sides of the house is tremendous,” she said.

As president, Cohen will preside over board meetings, make committee assignments and decide when to fast-track legislation. She pledged to approach her new duties with “fairness and even-handedness.” Cohen, who represents District 10, will serve as board president until January, when she’ll be termed out as a supervisor. She’s also running for a seat on the state Board of Equalization in the November election.

“I’m going to do my best to cut through the noise, to squelch the political madness so we can stay focused on what the issues are before us,” she said.

Supervisor and Mayor-elect London Breed announced last week that she would resign as president at the end of Tuesday’s meeting, citing a need to focus on her transition to the mayor’s office. Breed had served as board president since January 2015. She will remain on the board as District Five’s supervisor until she’s sworn into the mayor’s office on July 11.

But that move rankled some of the board’s progressive faction, who blanched at the prospect of electing their next president while moderates still hold a 6-5 majority. Despite casting their votes for Cohen, progressive Supervisors Kim, Hillary Ronen and Aaron Peskin took pains to raise concerns that Breed, as the city’s mayor-elect, would be allowed to help select the next leader of the city’s legislative body.

“It seems a little inappropriate for the outgoing mayor-elect to be voting for the chief of this legislative branch,” Peskin said. “I don’t think it’s inclusive. I don’t think it’s democracy at its best. I want to put that on the record.”

Next month, the board’s progressives will have the majority after the swearing-in of Rafael Mandelman as the District Eight supervisor. Mandelman beat out moderate Jeff Sheehy on election night. Mandelman had said he had hoped to cast a vote for the board’s next president, but pledged to work with Breed regardless.

But it remains to be seen if Breed feels any obligation to extend an olive branch to progressives after they orchestrated her removal as acting mayor — she filled that office after the death of Mayor Ed Lee on Dec. 12 — in favor of current Mayor Mark Farrell back in January.

Before Cohen’s election, the board passed an ordinance that could shave months off the time it takes to develop 100 percent affordable-housing projects in San Francisco.

The ordinance, which passed unanimously, eliminates the need for the city’s Planning Commission to sign off on 100 percent affordable developments. Instead, Planning Department staff can review the projects to ensure they comply with zoning laws and design codes and then approve them administratively.

Jacob Bintliff, a senior planner with the city, said that getting a proposed 100 percent affordable-housing project in front of the Planning Commission can take between four to six months. Allowing Planning Department staff to take the lead in vetting and approving 100 percent affordable developments could pare that time down by months.

There are currently around 1,700 proposed projects that could benefit from the expedited approval process, Bintliff said.

The ordinance was introduced by Farrell in April as part of a broader effort to streamline the development of more housing in the midst of a punishing shortage. The legislation stems from a mandate handed down by Lee last year instructing city departments to find ways to speed up housing development.

The ordinance is also expected to make the planning process more efficient for market-rate developers building downtown high-rises by allowing them to bundle requests for zoning variances with other applications they send to the Planning Commission, rather than being subjected to a separate hearing for variance requests.

Dominic Fracassa covers San Francisco City Hall for The Chronicle. He previously worked as a reporter and editor for the Daily Journal, a legal affairs newspaper. He started in news in his home state of Michigan, where he worked as a news director of 103.9 WLEN.